The current subsidies of up to 60,000 yuan (about $9,800) apply not only to pure battery-electric vehicles, but also to "near-electric" plug-in hybrids, and hydrogencars. However, hybrids are not eligible.

Details of the new policy will be released later at an unspecified date.

In the meantime, China will cut the current electric-car incentives by 5 percent this year, and 10 percent in 2015, Bloomberg Businessweek reports. Those cuts are smaller than originally anticipated.

Maintaining subsidies will help China reach the goal of putting half a million "new-energy vehicles"--including battery electrics, plug-in hybrids, and hydrogen-fuel cell vehicles--on the road by 2015, and 5 million by 2020.

An influx of greener vehicles would help solve one of China's major problems: air pollution.

Last November, the World Health Organization (WHO) found Chinese outdoor air pollution causes lung cancer, and increases the risk of bladder cancer.

Last year, China became the first nation to surpass 20 million new car sales, and while vehicles are far from the only sources of air pollution in the country--industry and coal-fired power plants are the main sources--there has been considerable public pressure to lower emissions.